Justin Shapiro and Leesfield & Partners attorneys successfully recovered over $700,000 in settlements on behalf of their clients who sustained lower limb fractures. In both cases, our clients were guests at separate Key West hotels, and both fell victim to the hotels’ failure to warn and failure to adequately light concealed steps.
In the first case, Partner Justin Shapiro established that the concealed step was not only dangerous, but illegal for violating the 1992 Florida Building Code. Furthermore, the hotel failed to make the dangerous step “readily apparent” or to provide a handrail which was a violation of the NFPA Life Safety Code. Lastly, to add insult to injury, the hotel left its guests at the mercy of an illegal and dangerous step by not even warning them of the dangerous condition. Under such circumstances, it was beyond foreseeable that guests would fall and sustained life-changing injuries.
In the second case, Leesfield & Partners attorneys faced similar code violations, but our investigation also showed that the hotel owners did not just fail to address a dangerous condition, and actually created it. Attorneys with the firm established that the previous hotel owners had remedied the dangerous condition by adding adequate lighting which warned guests of the step down. However, when the new hotel owners took over, they made the decision to remove the lighting but failed to address / remove the underlying dangerous condition. All of this came into evidence via deposition of the previous owners and as a result, the hotel swiftly settled the lawsuit.
Over the past 44 years, Leesfield & Partners’ unmatched presence in Key West and Monroe County has resulted in the successful outcome of hundreds of premises liability lawsuits against negligent hotels for causing guests and visitors to become injured. Experience is paramount in these cases, not only to readily identify potential violations that have contributed to creating the dangerous condition in the first place, but also to thoroughly secure the necessary evidence to satisfy our client’s burden of proof.
If you need to speak with one of our premises liability attorneys due to fall, call our firm for a free evaluation.